Steve Scott

Middle-distance running star Steve Scott, who ran the mile in less than 4 minutes 136 times, has been elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, along with pole vaulter Earl Bell, 1992 200-meter Olympic gold medalist Gwen Torrence and race walker Larry Young. The induction ceremony will be Dec. 6 in Kansas City, Mo., for the hall of fame, which is under construction in New York is scheduled to reopen next year. Scott, 46, won the U.S. men's 1,500-meter title six times and the U.S.

Middle-distance running star Steve Scott, who ran the mile in less than 4 minutes 136 times, has been elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, along with pole vaulter Earl Bell, 1992 200-meter Olympic gold medalist Gwen Torrence and race walker Larry Young. The induction ceremony will be Dec. 6 in Kansas City, Mo., for the hall of fame, which is under construction in New York is scheduled to reopen next year. Scott, 46, won the U.S. men's 1,500-meter title six times and the U.S.

Your Dec. 2 article on Zola Budd's race in San Diego was by Steve Scott. Who is this Steve Scott guy? Could it be possible he is the same person referred to as "America's premier miler" in the story? KEVIN DAVIS Capistrano Beach The Steve Scott in question is a free-lance writer for The Times' San Diego bureau.

After reading Nicolai Ouroussoff's glowing review of Michael Maltzan's dated, minimalist, haphazard Kidspace project in Pasadena ("Inspiring Imagination," Nov. 23), then remembering his recent mean-spirited, clueless review of the magnificent new Hollywood & Highland project, I realize that one of my great fears for Los Angeles is that we will ever live in a city that Mr. Ouroussoff actually likes. STEVE SCOTT Los Angeles

Steve Scott, 68, an advertising executive who specialized in marketing toys. Scott began working part time at Buchanan & Co. while a student at UCLA and joined the agency when he graduated. After stints with May Co., Crane Co. and West Associates, Scott started his own advertising firm, Steve Scott & Associates. Over the years, the firm evolved by joining with others into what became Scott Lancaster Mills Atha. Scott retired in 1990, when the agency was sold to Evans Advertising.

Olympians Ruth Wysocki of the United States and Roger Black of Great Britain headline the entries for the first Steve Scott/Power Bar Invitational track and field meet Saturday at UC Irvine. About 250 athletes from 30 teams are expected to compete. Field events begin at 10 a.m., running events at 11:30. "It's a good little meet," Irvine Coach Vince O'Boyle said.

Steve Scott found himself in the unusual position of playing two roles for the Golden City Mile in Santa Ana. The part of No. 1 drawing card was a snap. As expected, Scott, America's fastest miler, won the men's invitational race in 4:07.2. His more difficult role, that of talent recruiter, gave him the headache. After Scott committed to run, he volunteered to round up some other world-class talent for Sunday's event.

Stop, Steve Scott, stop. Enough is enough . . . you should know by now. Everyone should know. Even your tired-but-true body should know by now. But Scott won't listen. He keeps proving us wrong. Scott, who lives in Fallbrook, should be a contemplative soul these days. It is a time of change for the man who fought his way to become America's greatest miler--and has remained there for almost a decade. Scott turned 30 this year. Furthermore, this is Scott's 10th summer season competing in Europe.

Jack Benny would be appalled. Here's a guy who can't wait to turn 40. But Steve Scott still has a long wait--he turns 38 in May. Why the rush? He wants to be the first 40-year-old to run a 4-minute mile. "Every so often, I compute how many months are left," he said between workouts for his record 15th appearance in Saturday's Sunkist Invitational at the Sports Arena. "It'll be a great challenge for me--as important to me as anything I've ever done."

In his decade or so as America's best miler, Steve Scott has seen challengers come and go. Some last a season or two, then move to another event or another career. But Scott's title as the fastest American miler endures. With another Olympic year upon him, it would only figure that Scott, 32, would be tested by another another eager and talented young miler. This year, that man is Joe Falcon, a junior from Arkansas who recently won the 1,500-meter run at the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.

Marcus Chandler, a gangly, loose-limbed freshman runner for Cal State San Marcos, still has braces on his teeth and the wide-eyed enthusiasm that a rookie has for everything new, even the taking of physicals. Chandler, from Serra High, was the winner of the 1998 California state high school championship in the mile and he is here at San Marcos for one very good reason. "It's Coach Scott," Chandler says, swinging his arms and hopping up and down on his tiptoes.

Steve Scott, 68, an advertising executive who specialized in marketing toys. Scott began working part time at Buchanan & Co. while a student at UCLA and joined the agency when he graduated. After stints with May Co., Crane Co. and West Associates, Scott started his own advertising firm, Steve Scott & Associates. Over the years, the firm evolved by joining with others into what became Scott Lancaster Mills Atha. Scott retired in 1990, when the agency was sold to Evans Advertising.

Two holes down with three to play, Tiger Woods stood and watched golf history turn tail and start to run away. So Woods did what he always seems to do in the U.S. Amateur. He chased it down from behind and won again. This time, at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club, cut out of the corn and hay fields, what happened Sunday was an occasion for the ages--a third consecutive U.S. Amateur title, which is something so rare, it has never happened before.

It looked like old timers day at the Steve Scott Track and Field Invitational Saturday at UC Irvine. OK, not so old, thirty-something. And these former Olympians showed the rest of the field that age is just a number. Ruth Wysocki, 39, recorded the best time in the world this year in the women's 800 meters, finishing in 2 minutes 0.2 seconds. Wysocki's time tops that of Toni Hodgkinson of New Zealand, who posted a 2:00.71 in February. "I'm really happy with that time," Wysocki said.

When Steve Scott was among the world's best middle-distance runners in the 1980s, people occasionally questioned his courage. He never won the big race, they said. No Olympic gold medal. No world championships. No one questions Scott's courage now. They applaud his comeback, less than two years after surgery for testicular cancer. Scott turns 40 on May 5, an age when most runners are retired from serious competition.

Steve Scott has won the marathon, beating testicular cancer into remission, and now is returning to more familiar challenges--the mile and its metric equivalent. Scott, the last U.S. 1,500 runner to challenge consistently at the international level with a second-place finish in the 1983 World Championships and a fifth in the 1988 Summer Olympics, has planned his comeback on the track for the Mt. SAC Relays in April, almost two years after his cancer was detected in May, 1994.